UKDN Waterflow has innovatively used Mobile App technology and Lumia Windows phone devices to enable their mobile workforce to be far more flexible, productive and efficient.
The company wanted a cost-effective, user-friendly and durable alternative to its PDAs to allow greater communication between field and back-office workers. UKDN Waterflow worked with their enterprise mobility provider, TBS Enterprise Mobility to fully integrate TBS’ mobile workforce management platform, Taskmaster, with a new smartphone option.
Many businesses with a mobile workforce still rely on outdated paper-based processes. By adopting a more interactive, user-friendly device, UKDN Waterflow have shown that they were determined to take a modern, innovative approach. They looked at various devices, but for Mark Cooper, UKDN Waterflow’s IT Director, there was only one choice: “Nokia outperformed other smartphones hands down.”
The use fo the devices eliminates the need for engineers to have a second traditional work mobile phone alongside a PDA. With the Nokia Lumia, they would only need one device. And to encourage engineers to keep the devices safe, UKDN Waterflow decided that after 18 months engineers could have the devices free for personal use.
The Windows operating system was key, because it integrates seamlessly with UKDN Waterflow’s existing Microsoft systems and field operations. Managers would therefore be able to communicate more efficiently with field engineers, for example by using Outlook and Lync.
“This innovation makes us far more customer focussed. Our commercial customers expect a different journey to our domestic insurance customers and the Lumia will help us to continually develop more targeted, customer-centric services,” said Mark.
Camera quality for most smartphones is better than rugged devices, but the Nokia Lumia camera is exceptional and helps engineers with a variety of onsite tasks, and as security is always important passwords can be reset in the field by engineers.
The combination of the Lumia devices and TaskMaster led to immediate improvements in scheduling and onsite management. Engineers are now able to send real-time progress updates through to customer service teams. Because the whole system is automated, if an engineer identifies a new job, it takes just five minutes to raise it, then two minutes to schedule it.
Where an image captured by a camera is sufficient, the engineer can scan documents on site, such as drawings, notes, and client-specific paperwork. Information captured on site is now integrated with back-office systems in real time, accelerating processes and minimising errors. Now, 50% of jobs requiring back-office contact are done automatically via TaskMaster on the Lumia devices – reducing time to input data from 25 minutes down to around 10-12 minutes.
And all of this contributes to a much better customer service for all of UKDN Waterflow’s customers.